A Single Rifle Shot

This weeks story is called: A Single Rifle Shot [4003 words]

Please be warned, there are spoilers ahead!

I wrote this story in one day- last Monday to be exact! The idea though, began several months ago. I watched Looper on DVD and afterwards thought that I'd love to write a time travel story that was extremely complicated. 

Now there are two types of time travel- divergent and 'accounted for'. Divergent travel is based on the theory that every decision we make creates a parallel dimension where our lives continue on as if we had made the different decision. A great example of this is the Biff Tannen future from Back To The Future II. I've never really been a fan of either this theory or it's use in Sci-Fi. 'Accounted for' travel is where you meet a time traveller from the future, and then in the future someone travels back through time... a good example of this (but also a creepy one) would be The Time Traveler's Wife. Much more complicated but more satisfying I think! So I started ruminating on possible plots and I came up with something different after also watching Skyfall (and complicated), and I came up with this- a story in a forest.

I sat on it for a while. I couldn't decide on a setting (either time or place) and felt I really shouldn't start until I was entirely confident with it. I had a moment in December where I almost started when I hit on the idea of setting it in the old west (I've wanted to write a western for years now...) but never got round to it because I became so focused on writing A Study in Blood. And then only last week I realised that I could write it in such a way as to not need a time or setting- keep it oblique and open to interpretation. I think this really lends it a strength and I'm very glad I did it now.

One note about the title- I originally decided to call it Loop. I had that name since I first came up with the idea and even made a cover with that title first. Eve thought it gave away the twist (and therefore the whole point) so I started fishing around for something else. My dad suggested Recoil which I liked a lot but then only today I thought of the title I've gone with- A Single Rifle Shot, I think it's more my kind of title, and it works in a twisty way as well- there is only one shot fired in the story, since the second shot is the same one from a different angle. So sorry Dad, but that's how it sometimes goes with writers.

As always; please feel free to feedback.

B A Jones 28/04/2014

A Coping Mechanism

This week's story is: A Coping Mechanism. [2261 words]

This story is very unusual- I wrote it, again, way back when I was first starting to write and it was one of the last ones I did for my first collection- the one with all the rules. I wanted to be more meta-fictional (I've always wanted to do that) and have unusual styles of writing where the writer is a character as well. I've found since that often this can be distracting and hard to maintain for anything more than a short story (unless the 'character' is basically yourself) and don't generally do it but this was an attempt at the height of my interest in that style.

I was quite depressed at the time of writing it and had done several other 'stories' about being alone and  frustrated in love. When I read this back in Feb I immediately started disliking it for being another mopey angst-fest but I think it's saved by it's ending. I gave the whole thing a bit of an overhaul, freshened up the style and made it sound less like the real me and changed the title (you do not want to know what it was originally called...) and now I'm really proud of it. I see it as being a writer's story, a demonstration of why writing can be so good for someone. It's about that whole idea (which I firmly subscribe to) that I don't write for any other audience but myself primarily.

I'd say my weakest style is anything contemporary or hip. This is the best I think I can get in that direction, my work now is always vaguely (or sometimes specifically) set in the past. I hope you like it!

B A Jones 21/04/2014

Final Resting Place

My story this week is called Final Resting Place. [3335 words]

This is another of my original collection of stories where I put a rule on the writing process. The rule with this one was to write all in the immediate first-person ('I'm doing this, I'm doing that...') which, surprisingly, is the easiest method of writing I've ever encountered. The method calls for you to work by instinct, to write what comes to mind in the instant and the more honest you are the better it sounds.
The story, obviously, has an american flavour to it. I think, if you didn't personally know me it would work better and be more believable but that's up to the reader to judge, it picks up and takes you through it. beyond that I can't recall to much about the origin or inspiration for this story, it just came to me as I sat writing...

Feedback please!

B A Jones 14/04/2014

White Sheets

This week's story is called White Sheets. [7012 words]

I wrote this one sometime in 2005. I had moved to Bath but, unfortunately my shitty windows 95 PC had broken and I only had my novel on disk so I couldn't carry on with it... I had a typewriter so I figured to keep things moving I'd try to write something on it, and this is what I got! Writing on a typewriter is VERY difficult- no editing (unless you want to re-write the whole page (which happened several times...))! And I personally don't really rate the story, I think its a bit simple. 

I originally called it 'Greedy Fly' which, if you're not familiar with late nineties post-grunge is the title to a Bush song (Bush were my favourite band when I was a teenager) and I had the title in a big list of story titles I often refer to. I had a vague idea of grungy hospitals (from the music video) so the story came out of that.

One other thing I'd like to say about this one- I forgot all about it, completely! when I was going through all my work in January I found it and read it and honestly forgot the twist, which was good! It meant I could see it like an outsider and see what was good and bad about it. I changed it accordingly and this is the best I think it could be. I also changed the title to be more appropriate to the story so here it is.

Anyway, feedback please as always!

B A Jones 07/04/2014